Lasting Marks
by Pun-3X
Summary: An alternate ending to the episode, Betrothed. It turns out Blackfire's invasion force is very much real. It's a fight for the Titans' very lives. Story updated and complete.
1. Main

-I wrote this a ways back, but I had always planned to go back and upgrade the story a little. Not much change, but I'd waited so long to do it that I figured I'd have the thing updated.

-This story was inspired by a picture I drew depicting a masive army outside the Royal Palace on Tamaran. It takes place at the very end of "Betrothed" as a sort of alternate ending. The concept is simple enough: After Galfore's corronation, there is a celebration. The titans stick around to attend, when a panicked messenger comes running into the halls, screaming in Tamaranian that an army is coming. The team goes out onto the balcony to see a huge ground force coming at them. It turns out, that 'phony' invasion Blackfire was talking about...not so phony. Remote fighters also fill the sky. Things are gonna get nasty. The picture itself can be found at if you're interested.

-Anyway, that's the setup for this alternate story. It takes place towards the end of the main battle. The format is written third-person, following Starfire's perspective. Of course, R&R is appreciated.

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Starfire looked out at the Tamaranian night sky. They were close enough to the balcony platform opening to finally see out. It was the same sky she grew up with, the same sky she would see out her window at any given time in her young life. It always seemed to make her feel safe. Peace would surround and envelope her when she would look up into it.

This night, that sky meant freedom. And there was anything but peace around them.

Starfire turned away from the balcony--their goal--and focused on the passageway they'd come from. Blasts of energy scored through the arches, blasting her Tamaran brethren where they stood. There were still many that fought back as the swarm of enemy soldiers came up towards them. A shot of black energy pushed at the passageway, keeping the invading force at bay yet again. It was becoming evident that Raven's strength was not going to hold out. It was the same for the rest of the team.

This was the last place in the Main Palace not to have been battle-scared by the coming onslaught of soldiers, but it would not last. Starfire shook her head as she realized that if she didn't snap out of it and continue fighting...neither would they.

"Get everyone else to the next level!" Robin shouted to the guard patrol guiding what civilians were left. Most of the populous itself was made up of warriors, though not all were capable. Mostly children and elderly, the small surviving group made their way to the next tier, hopefully to get to what docked ships were at the palace hangar above.

This, however, was the Titans' last stop. The T-ship, their modified sub, was visible at the end of the platform outside the balcony opening. It was completely unscathed and fully repaired from their arrival trip. The Palace aerial defenses had done a number on the remote-controlled ships circling the main Palace, keeping them at bay or knocking them out of the sky. The report was that all ships in their hangars or docked at the Palace had survived. However, where luck was on their side in one way, it absolutely abandoned them in another. Saboteurs had successfully knocked out sixty-percent of the palace's counter-offensive ground weapons. Saboteurs with the faces of Tamaran warriors. Tamaran's own kind.

There were few, countable on one or both hands. That was all that the enemy required. The knocked-out defenses just happened to face the assaulting onslaught of enemy warriors, nearing 300,000 in number. Not all attacked the palace; the army broke ranks and went after their own predetermined targets. What was left was plenty enough to take the Palace.

The luck of having aerial defenses at one hundred percent operation had come from a sole Tamaran guard, part of the sabotage attempt. A last-moment sense of regret that caused him to single-handedly stop the few who were corrupted as he was, dying of his mortal wounds in the arms of another guard who happened upon the mess of bodies.

Perhaps his moment of redemption. It wasn't for Starfire to decide his fate.

Other sites had not been so lucky. One towering building to the east had lost every single aerial weapon during its sabotage attempt. It's ground defenses suffered near the same. Another, smaller palace still maintained its ground defense capabilities, though it seemed from earlier reports that they were finally beginning to give as well. Starfire got this information from what messengers and reporting stations could get their information out as best they could. It was perhaps best that the constant barrage of reports and talk-back were spoken in Tamaranian. Of the Titans, only Starfire truly knew what was happening.

But the Titans were intelligent enough. They needed no courier information to know the peril they were a part of. Without saying a word, the four young warriors of Earth did everything they could to fend off and fight back the advancing enemy as the people of Tamaran, at first, tried to squash the advance. Eventually, it all became an evacuation.

_How could it have come to this?_

Raven's black barrier finally collapsed, shattering into large shards of energy before dissipating into nothingness. Blasts of energy rang out and slammed into the walls and ceiling. Tamaran soldiers fired back, knocking down the first of the enemy to enter the room. Gordanian foot soldiers stormed in, firing from their weapon staffs or swinging their weapons at the nearest opponent. Starfire blasted two Gordanians with her starbolts, while Robin let fly the last of his explosive charges at a new group of enemy warriors. They slammed into their body armor or at their legs, causing enough damage one way or another to put them down. Robin had given up caution, had given up trying to simply knock them out. He wasn't out for blood, Starfire knew, but he had resigned to the fact that these creatures were bloodthirsty and would not stop until the Palace was theirs.

Until they were all dead.

More Gordanians took their fatal hits as Cyborg and Raven opened fire. More warriors took their place. Mixed within the Gordanian soldiers, Drenthax war makers floated into the room on antigravity units. The green blobs were more gelatinous than solid. Most physical objects seemed to stick into them and do no damage. Only the starbolts and energy blasts seemed to sear their body make-up enough to knock them down.

Their offensive attacks consisted of shooting mucus globs from their multiple snouts. The globs themselves were partly acidic—enough to burn at the skin and eat through cloth, given time. Tamaranians screamed as globs splattered into their faces, only to be silenced by Gordanian warriors taking advantage of a downed target.

Robin finally pulled back and ran to Beast Boy who was slumped in a corner behind the last stand of warriors. He'd taken a hit across his back in the lower level from two Gordanian weapon staffs. He was lucky to have been in rhino form at the time, but the damage done was still extensive. He couldn't morph, could not even stand on his own two feet. Robin hoisted him up with an arm over his shoulder. Beast Boy slumped on Robin's side.

"That's it! We have to get out of here, now!" Robin shouted.

Starfire's eyes lit bright green, and she unleashed a massive blast against the archway in front of her. She roasted one of the Drenthax war makers until he was blackened and oozing out of his snouts. Before she could strike again, a set of four guards blocked her view.

_:Princess:_ they spoke in Tamaranian. _:We'll protect your leave. Please, go now:_

_You mustn't:_ Starfire shouted. _:I cannot just leave…:_

"Starfire!" Robin shouted behind her. She turned to see Raven hovering away and Cyborg limping along, trailing behind Robin and Beast Boy as they ran towards the ship. The latter two were traveling mostly backwards as they continued to face the oncoming soldiers while trying to fend them off from a distance. One of the Royal Guardsmen in front of Starfire took a hit to the chest and collapsed. The other three closed ranks and continued firing back. With a last look, Stafire turned around and started to flee.

Starfire flew to the Titans, turning backwards and firing at whatever targets she could see. They were out on the platform now, almost to the ship. Outside, the sounds of war boomed and echoed across the flat plains of her home. Most of the activity was still inside the Palace, but a stray shot here and there made their way towards the Titans. Most flew harmlessly past, though a few panged against the T-ship's haul in a shower of sparks. Cyborg fired one last time before jumping into the main cockpit. Raven tried to maintain her force fields as the shots began coming in with more intensity. Starfire could see the sweat across the girl's face. Her cloak was in tatters around her ankles. A few holes spotted the upper parts, while a section of her hood had been seared away from a near-hit.

The other Titans were similar. Robin's cape destroyed past the halfway point, his costume ragged from hand-to-hand combat with Gordanians that had gotten close enough. Cyborg's armor was cracked in too many places. His left leg had optic wiring hanging out slightly. It explained the limp. Beast Boy had a hole in the back of his jumpsuit and a nasty charred section of flesh across his back.

Starfire's outfit had been torn or singed from one thing or another. Her left boot was in two pieces, a result of a Drenthen glob hitting her in the leg. Her left arm was sore from a hard hit by a Gordanian soldier's weapon staff she allowed to get too close. Starfire's counterattack, though, had been much deadlier.

One last starbolt flew from Starfire's fist, and then she was climbing for the cockpit on the starboard wing. Robin, with Raven's help, had gotten Beast Boy into the central cockpit. Then, both broke for the last remaining seats on the ship. When everyone was settled in, Cyborg pressed the close mechanism. The canopies started coming down, sealing in the Titans as they fastened their crash-webbing. The noise outside had suddenly cut off, and all Starfire could hear was the sound of the engines thrumming to life.

Starfire happened to look back towards the rear of the ship, and she suddenly saw Robin's canopy open back up. Her eyes widened as she was trying to figure out what he was doing. When he ran back to the center of the ship, she saw. Everyone else's canopy had closed. Everyone except for Beast Boy's. The mechanism had either failed or taken a hit from a stray staff blast.

Starfire's initial reaction was to get out and help, but Robin had the canopy down and sealed before Starfire could get her restraints back off. At about that moment, a blast seared across the lower rim of Starfire's canopy, startling her and causing an unconscious shriek. Another struck the side of the ship, causing Robin to reflexively speed up his process of getting back to his seat in the aft section.

The third blast Starfire saw struck Robin somewhere in the back as he was turned around getting to his cockpit. Sparks flew everywhere, and Robin bent backwards from the impact before tumbling forward again half into his seat

"Robin!" Starfire shouted in total fear and shock. She made to open her canopy to help him, to get to him. It wouldn't open. She looked at the opening mechanism, trying to see what was wrong with it. Nothing. She looked back at the rim of the canopy. The transparisteel had been fused to the frame of the ship.

Before Starfire could attempt to blast her way out, she saw Raven run to Robin's aid from across the ship. She yanked and pulled at his body, trying to set him right inside the cockpit. She reached in quickly and jabbed the closing mechanism. She pulled away as the canopy started to close and stood up to make her way back to her own cockpit.

Stafire sighed in relief. _Thank you, Raven._

In a moment of instinct, Raven's head turned sharply towards the balcony archway. Starfire watched as Raven put up a black barrier field just in time to catch a blast of energy. The shot hit dead center of Raven's field, which collapsed after impact. Raven, her strength almost gone from her, flew backwards over the aft end of the ship.

"Raven!" Starfire called out, her hands on the back of her canopy. More blast shots seared across the haul, flying past or panging against the ship's armor.

"_All right, we got power!_" Cyborg called across the comm. device. His voice was intense. "_Hang on!_"

"Wait!" Starfire shouted back, "Raven…!"

The T-ship began lifting off the platform, sliding sideways to the left. Starfire again made to push at her Canopy, trying to pry the fused section apart.

"_Star, sit put!_" Cyborg called back across the comm. "_I got it handled!_"

The T-ship, now pulled away from the platform, swiveled around until it faced the archway across the stretch of balcony. Gordanian and Drenthax warriors started streaming through the arches. In the next instant, the T-ship opened fire. Streams of sonic blaster-fire and high-velocity projectiles rained across the platform in a torrent, mowing down the approaching forces. At that point, with so many enemy soldiers piling through, the concern of someone on their side getting hurt from within the Palace was nil. Cyborg continued to fire until there was no counter response from within.

Raven was at the end of the platform, down on one knee. She struggled to her feet, and Starfire knew she was in no condition to fly to them.

"_I'm bringin' the T-ship in closer,_" Cyborg said. "_We'll pick her up._"

"I am going outside," Starfire responded.

"_I told you to sit put!_" Cyborg retorted, sternly. "_We got enough injuries already._ _I'm pullin' up along side her._"

The ship turned to its right, exposing its portside cockpit to the platform. Cyborg slowly drifted the ship in towards Raven. The girl took a few steps over, trying to avoid the suction from the engine as it finally overlapped with the platform's edge.

As Raven made to grab for the edge of the wing, a shot rang out and flew up under the ship. A second did the same, just under Raven. The girl winced and went down again. A third slammed into the underside of the Starboard engine, and a metallic whirring sound filled Starfire's cockpit. The engine whine increased in pitch, and the T-ship began to tilt to it's right. Away from the platform.

Before Starfire could react, another blast struck just ahead of Starfire's cockpit and sank deep into the armor before exploding back out of the hole it had made. A split-second later, Starfire's control panel exploded in her face.

The concussion effect was worse than anything else. The debris and shower of sparks did little to the Tamaran's tough skin, though she thought the smell of ozone in the cockpit had a slight sense of burnt hair in its mix. Starfire forced her eyes to open in her daze. The sound of the engines seemed muffled; again, from the concussion. She looked out the cockpit to her right. She could see the mountains from far off. Their tops blended with the night sky. That beautiful Tamaran night sky…

She blinked lightly, slowly turned to look the other direction. The T-ship was slightly angled to its right side, which was facing away from the Palace platform. The ship seemed to struggle keeping in place, and it started to drift further away. Raven was crouched on the floor, again trying to stand. The lower portion of her tattered cloak seemed to be blackened and fused with her calf. Starfire wasn't sure if that was truly what she was seeing. Her eyes blurred over a bit, and she tried to blink them into focus.

"_I can't get her straight!_" Cyborg shouted over the comm. Surprisingly, it still functioned. "_Damn ship's fightin' me! Can't...get her into position..._"

Starfire was slowly trying to comprehend the words. Disorientation was too heavy. She tried to clear her head. She looked again out the canopy as her head began to slowly clear up. The Palace archway itself was oozing thick smoke, both from prior combat as well as the T-ship's previous attack. A new group of Gordanians had come pouring through it, shooting at the ship. Intriguingly, the attack stopped for all of a moment.

Then, a single shot rang out.It held its bright glow as it flew across the platform, seemingly in slow motion. Its travel ended against Raven's back.

The girl's eyes went wide, the shock of the impact snapping her head back. Her hood fell to her shoulders, and Starfire could clearly see Raven's face. Another blast struck Raven's back, this time causing a slight glow to emanate from Raven's eyes. Starfire instinctively put her right hand to the transparisteel, reaching for her friend. Raven's eyes continued to stare wide ahead of her. Staring at nothing.

Then, the young girl's body dropped down until she was collapsed onto her knees and lower legs. The rest of her slumped to her right from simple gravity. The other side of her cloak, now on top of her, billowed out from her fall, draping over her bare legs one last time.

Her eyes continued to stare at nothing. There was no longer anything left in them.

Starfire's rage built to its climax then, fighting against disorientation. "RAVEN!" she shouted, slamming her fist against the canopy. The T-ship swiveled around, causing Starfire to lose her view of the horrible event. The ship still lurched to its right, but Cyborg managed to fire the guns again into the archway. The ship nosed down just a bit, and Starfire could see over the front of the starboard wing that there were more troops coming through than the guns could handle. The Gordanians began firing back once again, and the T-ship pulled away to avoid being struck.

"No!" Starfire screamed. "Raven! We must--"

"_It's too late!_" Cyborg yelled back. "_We gotta go!_"

"We cannot!" Starfire countered. "I will not leave Raven behind! I will not leave these monsters to…to…"

"_They've already killed her!_" Cyborg growled, his words choked. "_There's nothing we can do!_"

"NO!" Starfire retorted, slamming her fists into the transparisteel. It cracked where her fists landed. She pushed against them, trying to breach the canopy.

"_Damn it, Star! Don't you dare leave this ship! We ain't stickin' around! We're goin' out into space!_"

"I can survive the travels of space without a barrier!"

"_Star!_" Cyborg's voice was fierce. "_Beast Boy's out, Robin's out. Now Raven? If you go out there, there won't be anyone left!_"

Starfire froze. The words stung. They were all in bad shape. She looked up, could see the aerial weapons batteries keeping the remote fighters at bay, but the remote controlled ships were making a heavy attempt for the T-ship.

"_We gotta get home, NOW, if B' and Rob have any chance!_"

With that, the ship banked hard around, flying away from the now-burning Palace. She watched the platform shrink away, watched as a hoard of Gordanians surrounded Raven's body until Starfire could see it no longer. She watched as they raised their staves into the air in triumph of their kill. Then, the whole scene blended into a mesh of colors against a spot on the Palace. Starfire looked around at the rest of her home world. Every tower, every building she could see was burning. The further up into the atmosphere they got, the more the scene looked like the series of volcanoes on the far side of the planet as they would erupt when it was season. It was her home.

It was gone. Taken over.

She could see other ships making for space. Many more than she could have hoped for were getting away. Still, many others were being shot down, leaving streaks of black trailing from the sky to the ground below.

"_Fighters, comin' in behind us,_" Cyborg warned. "_Once we get outta the atmosphere, we should be able to outrun 'em. Looks like the engines are still runnin' at full power. Hang on!_"

The ship pulled up, causing a slight lurch in Starfire's stomach. In very little time, they had made it out of the atmosphere. Just as Cyborg had said, the fighters could no longer keep up once they got into space.

There was the unsettling silence of the trip back home. Starfire only stared ahead at the shattered console in front of her. The young Tamaranian girl's mind could not wrap around the facts and events that had concluded only a few minutes ago.

"_Engines are…_" Cyborg began over the comm. His voice was softer, drained. "_Engine's check out fine. Think that blast just...hit the hover fans on our right side. We should be able to get home._"

Starfire gritted her teeth. She stared at the portion of console still unscathed. After a long moment of staring, she reached over with her thumb stuck out. Slowly, she pressed the red communication button, cutting Cyborg's comm. off. She held her thumb there, and her eyes winced along with her gritted teeth. She unconsciously started applying more pressure with her thumb, until the switch and surrounding portion sank into the console with a loud crack. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she opened her eyes and looked at the other two cockpits. Beast Boy was on Starfire's left. He was still out. Behind her, Robin had his hand over the front of the console. He was unmoving, but the change in position of his arm indicated a moment of consciousness. There was some hope.

Cyborg raced the ship home to Earth as fast as the engines could carry them there.


	2. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

Starfire watched as the last part of the sun disappeared on the ocean's horizon. She sat near the edge of the Tower's roof, occupying its center. Her long legs came up to her chest as she wrapped her arms around them. The usual comfort of her soft hair around her shoulders became somewhat of a nuisance, but she didn't have the energy to brush it away. The wind would simply wrap it around her again anyway.

It had been four days since they had left Tamaran. With the Titans almost entirely out of commission, the Justice League had sent a few members to keep the city in shape until the team was back to...

Starfire closed her eyes. Things would never be normal. The team could get back on its feet at some point, but it would never be the way it was. Not ever. Starfire had experienced death. But she had fooled herself into believing the Titans were inseparable. She thought back to the time when the worst thing she feared was the _Rekmas_: the Drifting. Even then, at least they all would have been alive. It was a hard fact, dealing with the death of Raven. Dealing with the removal of one of the team, forever. Even when they lost Terra, it wasn't permanent.

Terra. Trapped in stone, waiting for a cure to bring her back. That was saying there was one.

It was too hard for Starfire to be in the Tower, anywhere. She had a hard time looking at Cyborg. She knew in her heart he had done the right thing; that it was too late. It was simply hard to face that. Cyborg had tried disappearing in the garage earlier to keep his mind occupied. It had been perhaps four minutes when he made his way back up and walked solemnly across the recreation lounge to the halls on the other end. Starfire didn't understand why, but something in the garage seemed to have a negative effect and did nothing to comfort him. Starfire even noticed he'd come up looking worse than when he'd gone down.

Starfire stayed a moment longer on the sofa before heading up to the roof. She looked across the ocean as the sky's orange lining of the horizon began to darken while she sat there. This one spot, a favorite of Raven's when meditation inside the Tower had proven futile.

Starfire hugged her legs tighter, resting her chin on her knees. Even up here, she couldn't get away.

The Tamaranian girl thought of her home world, her people. What made everything so difficult was that the loss for her was greater. She'd lost her friend, and she'd lost her world. Blackfire, her sister, had won. Blackfire was nowhere to have been found during the battle in the Royal Palace. It would have been just like her to gloat, yet there was no word from her or of her in any of the information relaying around Tamaran. Had she even been on the planet? The assault force attacking the Palace and surrounding sites was not the only attack force across Tamaran. Perhaps she had been a part of one of the other raids?

Starfire sighed. It was a useless detail. Her first home was gone. For her, though, Earth was now her home. She feared for the Tamaranians who survived. Where would they go? What little word she had of the remnants came from a small Tamaran shuttle that followed them to Earth. The small crew communicated with some of the other ships that were within stellar communication range. The Tamaranians had clustered together into three main fleets of varying craft. All together, there had been 1,830,000 survivors, which did not include Tamaranians that had been off-world at the time. Of the survivors was a severely wounded Galfore. She had not heard any information on how he'd managed to escape or on his recovery since finding out he was alive.

As the last bit of light remained on the horizon, Starfire buried her face in her knees and arms. She thought of her own wounded. Robin and Beast Boy were both in the infirmary. Beast Boy was still in a heavy coma. Even with the wound cauterized, he had lost a sufficient amount of blood. They had done what could be done for him to keep him as healthy as possible, but a blood transfusion was far too difficult. Beast Boy's body had to rely on itself to heal and regenerate a lot of what it needed. Things for him were still very rocky.

Miraculously, Robin's wound wasn't as damaging as expected. The blast slammed into his right shoulder blade, causing extensive damage to the skin and muscle tissue, but he would be all right. With Robin, however, Starfire had a difficult time. She visited him once in the last four days, when he was barely conscious. She couldn't face him. Not after what she'd felt. It had been horrible. How could she have thought that way? She was watching him, the various machines and taps hooked into him. He noticed her in the doorway...and smiled weakly. She smiled back to him. Then, she had that awful thought.

She hadn't gone to see him since. She limited herself to merely asking how he had been doing. It was also the only real reason Starfire would actually talk to Cyborg. Perhaps even an excuse to do so.

Starfire became acutely aware of footsteps from behind her. The young girls head came up from her knees a moment, then turned. Robin, his arm in a sling and his shoulder bolted down to a metal-framed half-body cast, walked slowly along towards Starfire. She stood up, highly surprised to see him walking. Her heart raced, but for all the wrong reasons. Was it guilt? Was it fear? He had stopped walking. They stood that way for quite a few moments.

"Hey, Star," Robin finally broke the silence.

"Robin," she half-sighed out. "I…you are well! Well enough, to..."

Robin gave that half-smirk, looking himself over as best he could. "Yeah. Infirmary was getting really stale for my tastes. Just don't tell Cyborg I'm up here."

Starfire afforded a slight giggle. It felt surprisingly good. She held her slight smile a moment longer before finally asking. "How is Beast Boy? Has he improved in the least?"

Robin looked down a bit before responding. "He's still in a coma. Cyborg says his body has healed up considerably, though. No infections he could detect. It's now just a matter of him coming out of it."

The Tamaranian girl looked away for a moment. There was an awkward silence between the two.

"I…know about...what happened," Robin finally began. "That Raven died…helping me. After I was hit." Now, it was Robin's turn to look away. "I've been having a hard time with that. I keep thinking in that damned infirmary, if I'd only been more careful. Quicker, maybe..."

It was a few moments more before Starfire finally decided to walk the rest of the way across to Robin. She stopped one more moment as she got to him before finally raising a gloved hand to his face. There was a scar on his cheek, a scar that hadn't been there before. She couldn't help but begin tearing up.

"You," Starfire began through her tears, "have done nothing wrong. As Raven saved your life, you have also saved Beast Boy's." Starfire closed her eyes a moment. "And, Cyborg saved us all."

It was the first time in the last four days that she could say it out loud and truly believe it. A part of the weight on her heart lifted. But, it was only a portion. She looked to Robin, wanted to embrace him, but she was afraid she might hurt him. The last thing she wanted to do was create more pain for him. But, she couldn't hold back her tears. And she knew that was bothering him.

It was Robin that reached for her with his good arm and pulled her to him. Starfire wrapped one arm across Robin's lower back, the only place she felt safe holding him. She rested her chin lightly on his shoulder. They said nothing more for the longest time. They simply shared in each other's grief.

Her grief was more immediate. She was happy that Robin was alive. She was grateful that Raven had saved him...had sacrificed her life to save him. That was what tore her up. How could she do that? How could she place a greater importance of one friend over another like that? That was the thought she'd had in the infirmary. She thought it every time she thought of Robin. Now, seeing him again, it was the same feeling. It crushed her inside. How could she ever get over that?

Starfire finally raised her head from Robin's shoulder. She wiped the tears from the side of her face with her left hand. Then, she looked at Robin. Yes, she was glad to have him here. To be able to touch him still. She didn't ever want to lose that.

"When Beast Boy wakes up," Starfire began, taking a breath in between, "we should all be there. To tell him what has happened. He will need his friends at his side."

Robin nodded. "We're all going to need each other. We're still a team. It's hard. It's going to be just as hard for a long time. But, we'll get through it together."

Starfire smiled slightly and nodded once. She let her right arm drop from around Robin. The Boy Wonder caught her arm lightly as he pulled his away from her back, then he let it slide from his fingers.

"Robin," Starfire began, "might I accompany you down stairs?"

"I'd like that, Star," Robin answered. "If Cyborg finds us…"

"I shall tell him I ...'dragged you up here.'" Starfire smiled.

Robin half-smirked. "I was going to say, if he finds us that I just wanted to come up for some fresh air."

"Ah." Starfire replied. "I believe that will do just fine."

She let Robin start walking in first, then took up his side. She was second to go down the stairs inside and happened to look up at the night sky. It had lost its evening glow. That glow had always seemed to sooth her in the past. Even tonight, at near the last minute, it still managed to sooth her...in some form. She sighed, and walked down inside the Tower.

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Well, that's it. This story ends here, so no sequels relating to it will be written. Again, please let me know what you think. :)


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